Racial Futurity: Biolegality and the Question of Black Life

• In Event: Personhood, Law, and Relationality Amidst the New Biosciences II

Abstract

This paper considers how IVF donor insemination technologies can open the possibilities for the denial of black life. It asks: how might the birth of black child to a white mother—by way of donor insemination—be conceived as a “wrongful birth,” as it was in the 2014 Illinois Northern District Court case of Gramblett v. Midwest Sperm Bank? How is it that someone’s race—in this case the blackness of a newborn—can be viewed and used as a measure of injury (against a white parent) for which compensation or legal reparation was demanded? And, lastly, what does this case reflect about the perceived value—or lack thereof—of black life in America and the possibilities of and for racial futurity, understood as the guarantee of life’s continuation? Gramblett squarely placed the question of the valuation of black life before the law, which was used here to adjudicate the personal rights of the mother against her child. In this assessment of biolegality fundamental questions of the intersections of law, biology, and society are brought into stark relief, highlighting the challenges presented through bioscientific-technological interventions into ‘life itself.’ The paper contributes to STS conversations around the intersections of biomedicine/biotechnology, sexuality, and social justice.

Author

• Nadine Ehlers, University of Sydney